Part 10 (2/2)

But who? The nurse on Mildred's floor had said Mildred had told her a friend was picking her up, but the receptionist was definite about seeing her get into a taxi. ”She must have called a cab from somewhere else,” I said. ”Hope it's not Columbia-we'd never get through checking out all of those!”

”Too far away.” Vesta shook her head. ”Mildred would never spend that kind of money. Let's try Rock Hill; it's closer.”

I used the phone at Papa's Armchair to make the calls while Vesta paced the length of the small room. Two of the four cab companies in Rock Hill had no record of making the trip to Angel Heights for a pa.s.senger on the day in question, I learned, but the other two promised to get back to us.

Gatlin had just left to pick up Faye from kindergarten when the dispatcher at the Get Up and Go Transportation Service phoned to tell us that a driver had called for an elderly pa.s.senger a week ago today and delivered her to the bus station there.

My grandmother rarely cried, but now she made no attempt to hide her tears. ”She's been gone seven days, Minda-eight if you count today. Where on earth can she be?” She pulled a rumpled tissue from her pocketbook. ”I've felt uneasy about this from the very beginning.”

”Why don't we take a look at her apartment? See if she took anything with her. Might give us something to go on.”

Vesta sighed, but followed me into the small rooms in back of the shop. ”Might as well. Can't hurt to look.”

”Find anything missing?” I asked when she'd had a chance to look around.

”Her small suitcase is gone, and her coat, but she took that with her to the hospital.” Vesta peered again into the tiny closet. ”That silly hat's missing, too, and I don't see her lavender suit-the one she got on sale last year. I don't think all of her dresses are here, either.”

”Looks like she planned to be gone for a while.” I sat on the bed, relieved that at least Mildred had taken enough clothing, and watched my grandmother pulling out dresser drawers. ”What are you looking for now?” I asked.

”That zebra. Scruffy old thing. Mildred gave it to Otto for Christmas when he was just a little tyke, and he dragged it around everywhere. She hangs on to it like it's some kind of icon. Now that Otto's dead, I wouldn't be surprised if she's taken to burning incense.”

”Oh, I saw that zebra at the hospital,” I told her. ”It was in that little table beside the bed.”

Vesta smiled. ”Doesn't surprise me a bit. She hides things in it, you know.”

”Hides things? In the stuffed animal?”

”Lord, yes! Of course she doesn't know I know. And it's so big I could get my foot in there. No telling what else she's got in that zebra. Mildred's sewn it up so many times, the poor animal must be molting.”

”Vesta, maybe we should tell the police. At least they could help us look for her.”

”I don't know, Minda. There's nothing wrong with Mildred's mind, and she'd never forgive me if we humiliated her by dragging her back, but I'm worried about those pills.”

”The ones Irene gave her?”

”What if she takes more of them?” Vesta sat on the bed beside me and almost-but not quite-let herself sag. ”Frankly, I don't know what to do.”

”We can't very well drag her back if we don't know where she is,” I said. ”Why don't we ask at the bus station, see if anyone there remembers her? Somebody might be able to tell us where she went.”

Gatlin insisted that our grandmother wait for David to accompany her on her bus station quest that afternoon, and their oldest, Lizzie, and I went along, too. Faye decided to stay and ”help” her mother at the bookstore. Tigger liked it there, she said, because he could sit in the window and see what was going on. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the drugstore across the street sold hot dogs and ice cream.

Lizzie was working on her Toymaker badge for Girl Scouts, and during the ride to Rock Hill I tried my best to help her make a cornshuck doll, but the dried shucks became so shredded, we ended up with something that looked like confetti.

”What about a sock puppet?” I suggested. ”Or maybe some kind of game?”

Lizzie turned up her freckled nose at the sock puppet, but the game, she thought, might be kind of fun. ”We could make it sort of like Clue, Clue, ” she whispered, ”except it would be Minerva Academy instead of that big old house, and the body would be Otto's!” My young cousin frowned. ”Lessee... Sylvie Smith did it in the bathroom with a plastic bag....” ” she whispered, ”except it would be Minerva Academy instead of that big old house, and the body would be Otto's!” My young cousin frowned. ”Lessee... Sylvie Smith did it in the bathroom with a plastic bag....”

”Elizabeth Norwood! You're downright ghoulis.h.!.+” I glanced at my grandmother in the front seat, but she appeared not to have heard. ”You'd better not let Vesta hear you talking like that. And what makes you think Sylvia had anything to do with it?” (I really must've been the last one to hear about Otto's rumored romance.) She shrugged. ”He dumped her, didn't he? Everybody at school knows that.”

I remembered how much I thought I knew in the fifth grade and tempered my advice with a smile. ”Still, it isn't in very good taste, is it? Especially with Otto being family and all. And we don't know for certain what happened between them. Why don't we think of some other game?”

Lizzie tossed her head and grinned. ”Okay. How about Missing Mildred?”

I was glad when David pulled into the bus station a few minutes later. I stayed in the car with Lizzie while my grandmother and David went inside with a recent photograph of Mildred.

”They think Mildred's dead, don't they?” Lizzie said, watching them disappear into the building. ”Maybe whoever killed Otto kidnapped her and is holding her for ransom in a cave somewhere.”

”Why would they do that, Lizzie?” I asked.

”I don't know. Why would anybody want to kill Otto?” She linked her arm in mine, and we waited silently for her dad and Vesta to come back with a clue that might help us find Mildred.

But I could tell from their grim faces our trip to Rock Hill had been a waste of time. ”The woman who sells tickets said she might've seen Mildred, but she couldn't be sure,” Vesta told us. ”And the man who works with her couldn't remember seeing her at all.” My grandmother sank into the front seat with a moan, and that bothered me almost as much as Mildred's disappearance. Vesta Maxwell is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill moaner. In fact, she's not the moaning type at all.

”There's the police-,” I began.

”I know, I know. I suppose we could take legal measures to find out if Mildred charged a bus ticket on a credit card or wrote a check for her fare,” Vesta said.

”Of course, if she paid cash, we'd have no way of knowing,” David said.

I wished he hadn't. It was a long, quiet drive back to Angel Heights.

We found Gatlin waiting with exciting news when we returned. Dr. Hank had finally agreed to sell the building next door. ”Of course it's gonna take him a few days to get those old records out,” she said. ”I've talked with a couple of contractors about getting an estimate on the work that needs to be done.”

”Let's hope the walls remain standing,” Dave said, shaking his head. ”Hank's old records might be the only thing holding them up.”

”You'd think he'd be excited for me,” Gatlin said later that night as we drove to see Pluma Griffin's niece in the a.s.sisted living center on Chatham's Pond Road. ”I know it's a gamble taking a chance on this tearoom-bookshop idea, but there comes a time when you just have to hold your breath and jump in.”

”David's just wary,” I said. And with good reason, I thought, but for once I had sense enough to keep it to myself. ”He'll come around when you get an opinion from the contractors.”

My cousin didn't respond, but sat in the pa.s.senger seat with her arms folded and stared stonily ahead. ”I left him to get Faye to bed and see to Lizzie's homework,” she said a few miles down the road. ”Still, I think he was glad to see me go.”

”Probably,” I said. ”You're scary when you're mad.”

”Boo!” Gatlin laughed. Finally relaxing, she noticed the loaf of date-nut bread I'd brought along that Augusta had wrapped in star-spattered cellophane. ”You've been baking again again? Looks good-what is it?”

”Date-nut bread.” I shrugged. ”All those pecans...I do live in a nut house.”

”You belong in one,” my cousin said. ”And I don't believe for one minute you've become this domestic overnight. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were hiding a gourmet cook in the pantry.” She closed her eyes and sniffed the rich, dark loaf. ”She doesn't take orders, does she?”

”What makes you think it's a she?” I asked, and laughed. Gatlin laughed, too, but I could tell by her look she was kind of shocked that I'd even joke about having another man in my life. Frankly, I surprised myself.

I had found the loaf cooling on the kitchen table when I'd reached home earlier, but Augusta was nowhere around. Walking into a house without Augusta in it jolted me more than I was prepared to admit, and I sensed an urgency in her absence that gave me sort of an angelic kick in the pants.

Dusk had fallen early as it always does in mid-November, and although it was not yet five-thirty, backyard shadows enfolded the house and its surroundings in an indigo cape. I stepped out onto the back porch and called her name, and in the distance I heard her humming a song that would probably be familiar if Augusta could stay on key. She approached almost noiselessly in a swirl of autumn leaves, her purple, moon-splashed scarf billowing about her, long necklace glinting green and azure as she twirled. Arms out, head back, her small gold-sandaled feet moved quickly, gracefully, in what surely must be some kind of heavenly dance. The song, I finally decided, was ”Turkey in the Straw.”

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